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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering
Deck Garage
Casual deck " astral reanimator"
March 16, 2009
Casual deck " astral reanimator"
Hey I am Michael and I have build a deck for my casual playgroup.
Please note that when I say casual it means that old
cards are allowed and that we play because we enjoy it.
Every dirty card is allowed we play to have fun not to bitch about
power cards, but we do love power. I have been balanced down
to nothing, felt the pure dread of mind twist and so
on last Sunday I shot an arbitrarily large hellbent
demonfire in the head of my opponent to see a
misdirection!
I typically play against decks like dragonstorm, goblins, zoo,
balancing act, planeswalker control and the occasional
draw-go deck.
As I am on a budget this of course brings some challenges as fighting
old tournament classics is no easy task and help would be
appreciated.
This is my deck:
4 Putrid Imp
3 tireless tribe
2 Undead Gladiator
2 Twisted Abomination
2 Petradon
2 Woodfall Primus
2 Kearvek the Merciless
2 Garza Zol, Plague Queen
4 Balance
4 Astral slide
4 Animate dead
4 Exhume
1 Necromancy
2 Tainted pact
4 Barren moor
4 Secluded Steppe
7 Swamp
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
5 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle
The basic strategy is reanimator. in best case I can get a discard
outlet in T1 and begin to decimate my opponent from T2.
My targets has to categories the ones with come into play abilities
and ones that does nasty things in other ways right away.
I don't want to play something and have it killed while doing nothing.
The next part of the deck is astral slide which i can use to protect
my creatures or get rid of my animate deads (so a random disenchant no
longer kills them) it is also useful to abuse the coming into play
abilities in the deck. third it can hide my guys from my balance or
from an opponents pesky balancing act.
Balance has many uses it can kill my opponts swarms and at the same
time trow an animation target to the bin (if the are swarming odds are
that they have less cards) and it can devastate a combo player by
letting my discard outlets reduce my hand to a low no. and then quash
their hand. its also good with slide as i can slide my big guy and
balance my opponents army away and smilingly looking at my guy coming
back.
That said .. my single guy sometimes have to fight a lot of guys, and
counters can be nasty as i have just a few win cards. against combo I
am quite dependent on resolving a balance as my deck is not fast
enough to race (though petradon and primus sometimes helps).
disenchant effects can be nasty too.
Any ideas for the deck? cards from all series are ok though the budget
sets a limit. Buried alive and entomb are not there because they are
too expensive
thanx in advance
- Michael
_________________________________________________________________
When two classic strategies come together in one deck, it
doesn't always work as well as it could since each strategy
fights for cardslots in the deck. Astral Slide can do some
crazy things if you let it, and reanimator has always been
known for getting explosive power into play sooner than
should be possible. Do these two goals sync up? Let's find
out.
My first question is why Tireless Tribe and Putrid Imp are
in this deck. My answer is that they were probably included
as
discard outlets and as early blockers against the
aforementioned Zoo and swarm decks. That they'll do, but at
the same time you'd probably want fewer creatures in play
for when Balance hits. And when I see a B/W deck that needs
discard outlets, my first instincts are Delirium Skeins and
Peace of Mind. The Skeins will cripple everyone else's hands
while letting you pitch three cards, and the Peace of Mind
will let you convert every card you want to pitch into 3
life, which will also go a long way into letting you absorb
some of the body blows your opponent wants to throw at you
until Balance or Animate Dead shows up. Nihilistic Glee does
something similar, but for more mana and less life, it also
lets you ping at another player. It also has the advantage
that when you run out of cards in hand, it turns into a card
draw engine.
Your next move is that you seem to have neglected one of the
classics of reanimation: Scion of Darkness. This Demon does
everything you want to do: he cycles, puts himself in the
graveyard, makes an excellent reanimation target, and then
once he's out he'll make his own minions for you!
Which brings us into the cycling aspect of the deck. So you
Astral Slide out your reanimated creatures to A) break their
ties to Animate Dead, B) tuck them out of the way for when
you Balance or when somebody tries to kill them, and C) to
trigger comes into play abilities. Well, as far as C) goes,
all I can think of is that you might want to try Child of
Alara. Complete Board Wipe, and then your 6/6 trampler comes
back. I also looked for some good cycling cards, and
discovered Eternal Dragon. Thin your deck completely of
Plains, and reanimate a 5/5 flyer. And, for those quick
beater decks, look into Decree of Pain or Death Pulse as a
cycle that kills a few stragglers. Infest can do a similar
job for cheap, only without triggering the Slide. Pick
whichever you feel is right for you.
So what do you pull out for all these goodies?
Well,
of the cards I see in this list, Necromancy and Tainted Pact
stick out as being of least usefulness. If you want to go
get cards out of your deck, there's much better ways to do
it. You could go tutor, Demonic or Diabolic, and find the
pieces you need, or you can go card draw, with old staples
like Phyrexian Arena or Promise of Power. The Promise will
give you nice, fat Demon to smash face with if needed, but
the Arena will soften the blows by spreading them out over
several turns, as well as not be affected by Balance. And as
for Necromancy, well, you can break a creature's addiction
to it with Astral Slide, but if the Slide and a card with
cycling don't both show up, you may be in trouble. I'd
recommend leaning less on Auras for your reanimation and
more on cards like Zombify.
Then again, Undead Gladiator's ability to cycle and re-cycle
provide you with a sustainable way to draw cards and trigger
the Slide. Who knew Zombies were so eco-friendly?
Finally, I'd drop Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep and Eiganjo
Castle. You have no red mana source beyond Shinka itself,
and it can't tap for red the same turn you tap it for its
ability. And Eiganjo Castle has limited usefulness. If you
want a Kamigawa land to go with your Garza Zol, make it
Shizo, Death's Storehouse. Fear? How do you not love that?
At any rate, if you can speed this deck up a bit, or add in
some ways to hold off the faster swarm decks-- be it through
life gain or through mass removal and board wipes like
Infest-- you'll be able to pull offsome absolutely
disgusting power plays with this deck. The trick is living
that long.
Good luck!
~BMoor
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